Winter comes at last

Winter in Central Europe normally starts in November, with the temperature suddenly plunging to below zero. But this winter nothing really happened: the temperature dropped to a feud degrees above zero and stayed there, almost English.

On 21 January I left Budapest to join Helen for a two-week holiday in Thailand, where we sat around in 30° heat, avoiding the sun and letting our sweaty clothes dry. Then one day, to my horror, I discovered the weather report for Budapest said that the temperature had dropped to -16°, and we were going to be returning to these conditions within a few days.

I hoped that spring might suddenly arrive while we were flying over the Indian Ocean, but nothing like that happened and we arrived back to "Siberian conditions", as the BBC reported.

 So while a few days ago I was looking at palm trees waving in the breeze I am now looking at ice floating down the Danube and getting used to wearing multiple layers of clothing every time I leave the apartment. The weather forecast does not look promising: Spring still seems to be a long way away...

The rhythm of life

As I move ever closer to the prime of my life I find myself thinking about annual cycles and their markers more and more. Perhaps because each year there are more and more...

My latest reflection came as I walked back up the delightful Pozsonyi utca early one afternoon, thinking about the chilly January wind blowing over my shaved head. This particular reflection had been triggered by my latest session with Anna, my fodraszat, or hairdresser.

When I arrived in January 2010 I looked around for a `barber's`, but all I could find were women's hairdressing salons. Not wishing to make some western European metrosexual faux pas I asked my colleague Balint if he could suggest somewhere I could go. He recommended a place on Hollan Erno utca, and made me an appointment. So one winter lunchtime I duly walked down the ice-covered pavements in the sub-zero temperatures to organise my first Hungarian haircut.

I nervously walked into the salon clutching my Lonely Planet phrasebook and mumbled "hajvagas". Anna pointed to the chair and I sat down so that we could discuss style. Back in the UK I had a No. 1 all over, but this meant nothing to her, as she spoke no English. So we experimented with a succession of ever shorter passes until we got to a length that felt right - harom milimetres, three mm.

Ever since that day, every three or four weeks I go back to the same place, smile, say "Jo napot", sit down and get my 3mm cut. So we now have a relationship, and one that grows a little each time as my Hungarian vocabulary increases.

So as I walked up Pozsonyi utca the other day I smiled to myself about our conversation that day, which had.covered the date of my last visit, where we had each spent Christmas, our presents, her favourite perfume, my wife's favourite perfume, the price of a bottle of that, and which ended.with my final, pithy male observation that "Minden nok draga", all women are expensive, an observation whose enunciation in terrible Hungarian caused great amusement around the salon.

Learning Hungarian has been a long haul, and I can still only manage absolute basics, but it is worth it for moments like that, when I can make some unexpexted connection with another human being.

Moving home (again)

In the middle of January we moved home again, to our third and probably final resting place in Budapest.

The move was prompted by Helen's return to the UK in April, and the consequent desire to find somewhere cheaper. We had really enjoyed living overlooking Szabadsag ter for 18 months, watching the tourist groups, the dog walkers, the pairs of policemen endlessly walking round and round the Soviet war memorial, and, of course, monitoring the growing fortifications around the US Embassy.

So I spent some time in November looking at potential new apartments and reconciling myself to living somewhere smaller, darker and less convenient, although I was keen to move further from the office so that I could cycle more and get to know a different part of the city.

But I didn't find anywhere I liked until I suddenly started looking in Ujlipotvaros, the lower end of the XIII District, and immediately found a fantastic place overlooking the river and at half the rent.

So the deal was done and one cold day in mid-Jan I helped three likely lads move all our belongings the 2 km up the road. It took three trips and 8 hours, the long time being largely due to the difficulty  of betting stuff out of the old apartment, as the Embassy’s ring of steel meant that they could not get their  an near the front door. I had then to stay outside and watch the van while they moved stuff, and of course it chose that day to snow for the first time. So it was a rather chilly experience.

By 5 I was in the new apartment, surrounded by boxes. Home-making had to start again.